It's an Experiment
by PageJustice
Summary: Prompts and shorts of Sherlock and John. Most stand by themselves. Anything from fluff to angst to an occasional mention of an OC. I'll more than likely throw Hamish in somewhere. Requests and suggestions for future chapters are welcome!
1. You Have to Believe it, Lestrade

**Messing with Lestrade**

"It can't be."

"But it is."

"But that's impossible!"

"Obviously it's quite possible and it's happened."

"But-it's-"

"The truth, John. It must be the truth."

DI Lestrade glanced down at the body in front of him and then towards the consulting detective. He-like always-must've been missing something vitally important. He cleared his throat.

"D'you mind telling me what's going on? Things might be easier if I knew how he died."

Sherlock barely spared him a glance, instead poking at the skin hanging off the body with a pen. It was in awful state of decay, probably about a month old. Lestrade had been told that John found the body in one of their trash bins on Baker Street. He was only slightly suspicious that a body could've been left to rot in the detective's trash bins for a whole _month_, but stranger things had happened.

"Well, this genius here thinks that this man died about twelve hours ago." John spoke for Sherlock, wincing as said man pulled a particularly nasty piece decomposing flesh away and set it aside.

"That's ridiculous," Lestrade muttered. "He's clearly decomposing. How can he only be twelve hours dead?"

"Simple. I know he wasn't in the bins thirteen hours ago because John had taken the trash out. And since it's rained for half the week, it was easy to find the indentations in the ground. There were two pairs of footprints: one was John's, obviously, and the other must be this mans."

"How do you know someone didn't just dump the body?"

"Because, Lestrade, there was only one set of footprints that went _away_ from the trash bins-again, John's. Which means that the body was there for twelve hours or less. And before you say that _John_ might've done it-"

"I wasn't going to suggest that..."

"-he didn't. But I have a perfectly sound explanation for all this."

"Perfectly mad, you mean! Really, Sherlock, there's no such thing!"

John angrily crossed his arms, huffing to himself. Lestrade tried to quell the minor panic that was building. Not even _John_ could agree with him on this one? Strong, dependable, John? It must be mad indeed.

"Oh, just get on with it then," Lestrade waved his hand at Sherlock to explain.

"Yes, well, he'd been dead for twelve hours, but he's already thirty days into decomposition. He has remains of flesh in his mouth-and if you tested it I can guarantee it would be human-and he has a festering bite wound on his left shoulder that appears to be worse off than any other part of his body. So that leaves-"

Lestrade cracked a smile and snorted. "Yeah, okay, you got me. Nice one, boys, real nice. This is honestly better than that time Anderson got everybody decaf coffee and thought it was funny. I mean, seriously? Zombies?"

John and Sherlock shared a serious look.

"Yeah, that's right. Zombies. They're in London." John nodded, as if to reassure himself more than Lestrade.

The DI blanched. These two...they were serious. They seriously thought that this dead man was a zombie. He'd have to put them both in a mental institution. No, different institutions. No telling what they'd get up to when they're together. God, the paperwork he'd have to fill out...

"Lestrade, stop thinking, please. It's aggravating. We are not crazy. Look for yourself-really _look._"

Sherlock gestured vaguely to the body. Lestrade looked but...there was nothing but a dead man. He didn't see any indications that it was a zombie-really, he wouldn't know what would classify as "zombie-like" anyway. He leaned in to look closer, more to appease the two men in front of him than anything else. He'd really need to call some of his contacts to have them mentally evaluated and-

The man-_the dead man_-surged up from the table, fleshy hands latching onto Lestrade's shoulder. Later, after he'd run out of Bart's, he would claim that the girlish squeal had _not_ come from his mouth. He'd never scream like a five year old, thank you very much.

Lestrade reeled back from the body as it pushed itself up. He could feel detached skin hanging on his shoulder, and his eyes were blown wide. The zombie—_that was a __**bloody**__ zombie! —_ was in front of him. He was too busy praying to every god he could think of to notice Sherlock or John. They both grabbed him by his coat and ran.

"John, call Mycroft! Tell him we need quarantine at Bart's. Lestrade, I need you to-Lestrade!"

Lestrade stared at the floor with glazed eyes. "A...zombie. A bloody zombie...I don't think..."

And he collapsed.

There was silence as Sherlock and John stood outside the morgue's double doors and peered down at the unconscious DI. They both shared a look and then glanced back towards the morgue. The zombie strolled out to join them before they proceeded to cackle manically.

"Oh-that was-precious," John choked, patting the zombie on the back while it pulled a layer of prosthetics away from its face.

"Perhaps he'll think twice next time he decides to leave us trapped in a garbage barge after a case." Sherlock stepped around the DI to grab the Zombie by the shoulder and steer him down the hallway.

"_Very_ well played, Dimmock. I'm sure Lestrade won't mind handing you a few exciting cases in his absence."


	2. This Explains the Milk

**That Explains the Milk**

"John."

…

"John."

…

"John."

"No, Sherlock!"

"Fine."

…

"John."

"Bloody—"

"Now, John, the situation does not call for—"

John glared over the top of his laptop, pinning the…the…_monstrosity_ in Sherlock's arms with the most threatening look he could muster. The look that said _I __**am**__ John Watson and I __**will**__ gladly kick you out the window into the snow._

"A sophisticated man like yourself contemplating putting an innocent creature into the cold, John? You appall me." Sherlock tried to hide the grin in the collar of his dressing gown.

"First off, a guilt trip won't work. And reading my mind like that just freaks me the hell out." He snapped his computer closed and slid it under his chair so he could cross his arms. And glare. At. That. _Thing._

"You're only upset because you're allergic—"

John rolled his eyes in a way that he had learned from the man sitting across from him.

"And now you're giving me reason to believe that you may be a bit _jealous—"_

"Jealous?" John sat forward until his elbows were perched on his knees. "Sherlock, that thing could be carrying any kind of disease. It'll destroy the couch, get into the experiments, use up the milk that's already mysteriously disappearing—"

It took a moment before it clicked. Sherlock resisted the urge to sigh because it had taken him quite long enough to figure it out.

"You've been giving that thing all the milk! For…how long? And then you make _me_ go get more when it's _your bloody cat!_" John sprang to his feet, seething. He wasn't sure why he even put up with this man. This acclaimed-sociopath who'd been taking care of a kitten for the past _god knows_ how long. _Sherlock!_ Taking care of anything but himself…it was a foreign thought that clashed with all John's previous assumptions about his flat mate.

"John!"

"No, Sherlock."

"It will freeze if I put it outside in this weather."

John took a deep, frustrated breath before blowing it out through his mouth. "You know what? Fine. You can keep it here on _one_ condition."

Sherlock nodded for him to continue, holding the little black kitten in the crook of his elbow.

"From now on you have to get the milk."

And from then on, Sherlock made it a point to have milk in the fridge. John supposed that half the reason was just to spite him.

Days after the…incident, after The Fall (God, why does it always sound capitalized in his head?), after the flat had gone cold and dark and lonely—after there was only one tenant being kept company by a sad, empty skull—did John remember that they—_he_—has—_had_—a cat, nestled away in hisroom.

John knows it's in there, the little black cat. He knows that…_he_ kept it in there, and they—_John_—still had milk in the fridge because of their deal. John knows he has to go in there to take it out and find a home for it. He's allergic and he can't keep it here. He's moving, anyway. And has to go in there.

So he grabs for the door knob, and he's turning it and pushing. But he can't go in there—_he can't go in there._ It's already enough, walking around the rest of the flat. John doesn't need the damn cat to make him loose it completely.

He calls Mrs. Hudson up to retrieve it.

He _can't_.

* * *

A/N: Well. I don't know were the Reichenfeels came from. Also, sorry for any Americanisms that wind up in this whole thing:/ I do believe this is a little OOC, so, again, sorry!


	3. Pizzicato

_Pizzicato_

He stood at the window.

He appeared like a marble statue, dark hair and blue dressing gown washed out by the streetlight that filtered lazy and yellow through the window. Frost was inching along the pane, reflecting the deep shadows that the low-burning fire threw; the darkness clung to his back like a skin, making the shape of the violin contrast with his shoulder. Two cups of tea steamed on the end table.

He plucked idly at the strings, disturbing the crack of embers in the grate, although it didn't disrupt the other occupied stillness of the room.

It was moments like these that he allowed himself to wonder; let his mind traipse—ugh, he detested that word—away with thoughts that would later run rampant through his palace. They would wreak havoc on his deductions; they would pick and burn and gnash away at his mind—until there was nothing but vague suspicion and a sense of doomed inevitable secrecy—because he could—would—never know—be none the wise—ignorant to the fact—that, contrary to popular belief—contrary to _his_ belief—_his own belief_—_Sherlock Holmes_—_World's Finest_—that—John Watson—I—

But traipsing thoughts are detestable.

He would arrive home from the surgery. Turn the light on and act surprised to see him there standing in the window. Be delighted—but rightly weary—of the fire—thrilled that tea was made—but be paranoid after he drank it—also, rightly. He would notice the violin hickey that was beginning to grace his neck—"Sherlock! You really should…"—exasperated, fond—and he might put a hand to his skin; fell the pizzicato that was his pulse and not the instrument in his hands. Then he would surely know, and he could not.

He could not know because there was the bit-not-good possibility of him leaving—and Sherlock knew that, now, after all of it, they had turned into a duet, and with only one, the other could not keep playing.


End file.
